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Ruby Rose aesthetic board/moodboard

Ruby Rose aesthetic board/moodboard

Ruby Rose and Michael Kaiser: Two Growing Roses

I don't know about you but Kaiser shares things in common with Ruby and in a way Kaiser is what Ruby would have been if she hadn't received love from her family and friends in her life.

I'm quite aware that many think that Ruby is more like Kunigami and Kaiser is more like Mercury and Cinder but as I watched their arcs I couldn't help but notice how they are more similar than it seems and that's because Ruby and Kaiser are the same person under different circumstances.

To begin with, Ruby and Kaiser's struggle is rooted in their respective relationships with their families. To begin with, they had to deal with enormous pain at a very young age caused by the disappearance of their mothers:

On the one hand Ruby was raised in an unstable family environment where her mother went on a mission and never returned which caused her family to break down: her father Tai was consumed by depression, Yang had to be a surrogate mother for Ruby although she was also a girl who suffers from the abandonment of Raven, and Qrow, despite being the most stable figure for Ruby, he already had a history of having a semblance of bad luck that he cannot control and that he comes from a family of bandits but Summer's disappearance was the straw that broke the camel's back and he ended up sinking into alcoholism but despite everything all of them continued to love Ruby and tried to do everything possible to stay together as a family.

On the other hand, Kaiser grew up in a completely broken family: his father was a film director and his mother was a famous actress, they both fell in love and Kaiser was born as a result of that relationship, but his mother abandons them to continue with her acting career and his father is so submerged by pain to the point that he becomes an alcoholic, loses his prestige as a director and vents all his anger and pain on his son to the point of telling him that himself (Kaiser's father) and Kaiser's mother are worth less but that Kaiser doesn't even have value.

Both situations are quite different but the effect it caused on both is practically the same: Ruby and Kaiser see themselves as a burden and want to compensate their existence by being special.

Ruby witnesses her suffering from the loss of her mother, which is why she ends up seeing herself as a burden and wanting to be a copy of her mother, not only because she admires her and wants to emulate her to feel that somehow Summer still alive, but she also empathizes with her family and wants to ease the pain they have from losing Summer.

Kaiser sees himself as less than human and witnessing violence and insults throughout his childhood which makes him unable Kaiser is unable to empathize with others, interacts with people through violenceand ends up believing that in order to feel that he is valuable and not a burden he has to take away the value of others.

Even the mere fact that they both look like their mothers only makes them both view their own existence as less: Ruby feels like she has to be Summer's copy to make up for her lack but knows she can never replace her. Because of the way Kaiser's father treated him, Kaiser subconsciously internalizes that he can never be a human (in other words he can never make up for his mother's absence or be loved by his father) because to his own father Kaiser is worth less than himself (Kaiser's father) and his mother (and there are even indications that Kaiser's father probably hated him because of the resemblance Kaiser has to his mother and that made him remember her and increased his pain for abandoning him after having Kaiser).

They have rose motifs and the reason is because of their mothers: Summer left her rose emblem as a symbol of love for her daughters, Kaiser's mother abandoned him and his father and the only thing she left behind was a blue rose that Kaiser's father keeps it as a souvenir of her, becoming a reminder of lack of love.

As I said before, Ruby and Kaiser have rose motifs only that Ruby's motifs focus on the petals and Kaiser's motifs focus on the thorns, this shows that despite being opposites they still have similarities between them just like the petals and thorns are different parts of the rose but they are still parts of the same flower.

Also the fact that their rose motifs are different is because Ruby received love which makes her develop kindness while Kaiser only received hate which makes him develop his malice. This shaped the way they both seek to compensate for their existence:

Ruby compensate her existence by being the huntress who helps and protects everyone with her kindness.

Kaiser compensate his existence by being a striker who crushes his enemies on the field with his malice.

The way in which they both want to compensate or give meaning to their existence is through something that they were passionate about since their childhood: Ruby always listened to fairy tales, stories of Summer and the stories of other hunters in general and the only good thing that Kaiser had in his childhood was his soccer ball that bought himself.

Ruby and Kaiser get their chance to continue their quest to compensate for their existence after they got into trouble and they are detained for that: Ruby stopping Roman from robbing a dust store and Glynda helps her but immediately afterwards takes her to an interrogation room for acting without being a licensed hunter and Kaiser being framed for a crime he didn't commit, beating his father for trying to protect his precious soccer ball and the police and being arrested for it.

After Ruby and Kaiser are detained, an adult (Ozpin/Ray Dark) comes to recruit them when they realizes that they have talent for their respective areas (huntress and silver eyed warrior/footballer and striker). Ruby and Kaiser take the opportunity and join them and although at first they have trouble adapting to their teammates, they eventually manage to become outstanding huntress/footballer who manage to inspire them. Only while Ruby inspires them with her skill as a leader and her optimism, Kaiser does so through his skill as a striker and manipulation.

Part of the reason they have managed to be so prominent in their respective fields is because they have proven capable of being resourceful and cunning, even more than people give them credit for: Ruby is always seen as a naive and enthusiastic girl, but she has managed to make her enemies lower their guard and attack them when they least expect it and Kaiser not only manipulates people off the field, but is able to think and create solid plays when playing his matches.

However, Ruby and Kaiser share their obsession with being the best in their respective areas to the point of becoming symbols because that way they don't have to deal with their trauma and even refuse to talk about it with those closest to them. Ruby is so busy saving others that she doesn't have time to think about her own trauma, Kaiser takes too much delight in being the best striker on his team that he pushes aside any thoughts about his own trauma. Neither of them thinks about it because both Ruby and Kaiser see themselves as worthless to the point that not only do they feel they have to prove that they are not a burden, but they both believe that their own traumas are not important because Ruby and Kaiser deep down doesn't believe that themselves are important.

Ruby and Kaiser have a belief in “making the impossible happen”, Ruby really believes that she should keep fighting even if winning is impossible, she believes that she and her friends can stop Salem and change Remnant for the better, Kaiser really believes that if he was able to escape from his abusive home that seemed impossible, he can achieve anything he sets his mind to. However, Ruby and Kaiser take this belief to extremes due to their respective traumas, which prevents them from having true growth: Ruby truly believes that she has the weight of the world on her shoulders and that she has to solve everyone's problems, Kaiser never believed in himself to the point that he needs to feel that others are inferior to him in order to feel special.

All of the above makes both characters want to become symbols (after all there is nothing better to represent the impossible than a symbol), only they don't understand that being symbols isn't about Ruby redeeming the world with her hope or Kaiser destroying the hope of others; it's about Ruby and Kaiser learning to live in a world that wants to crush hope with their hope still intact.

Ruby and Kaiser believe that symbols are loved by everyone and that symbols don't feel pain but always move forward but Ruby and Kaiser forget that they are still human so seeing themselves as symbols that don't feel pain is not a healthy coping mechanism and as their respective stories progress these coping mechanisms stop being viable and they are forced to take the first step to grow which is to accept their humanity (accept their trauma to be able to face it, accept that they are humans who suffer and they fail like anyone else but don't let themselves be defined by said suffering or failures, be more independent, trust others more and ask for their help, etc.) because if they don't do so they will not advance.

Even in their closest relationships there are subtle evidences and consequences of that stagnation, Ruby feels that she owes it to Yang to be the perfect little sister and leader, Kaiser always receives assistance from Ness and depends on his passes to score goals (Ness and Yang are also dependent on Kaiser and Ruby: Yang sees Ruby as the younger sister who needs protection, Ness sees Kaiser as a symbol of the magic he wants to see but doesn't know him for who he really is, Ruby and Kaiser on the other hand don't understand that they are already enough for Yang and Ness, so I I think that both Kaiser and Ness and Ruby and Yang have to be more independent from each other so that their bond is healthier and stronger).

Their abilities as well as their roses motif show evidence of this stagnation too. Ruby rushes to be the perfect hunter by using her semblance to help others quickly, but she can scatter and lose herself. On the other hand, Kaiser is so focused on crushing his opponents with his thorned goals that he doesn't realize that he could become crushed by his own thorns.

But part of those first steps that they need to take to begin to evolve begin with a process of destruction

and rebirth.

Part of that rebirth is that both have to redefine the meaning of their rose motifs: Ruby and Kaiser must convert the meaning of the rose (a mother's promise/a mother's abandonment, being in the end a reminder of the pain left by the departures of both women in the lives of Ruby and Kaiser) and give them a new meaning, converting them from the symbol of their mothers to their own symbols, the roses go from being a symbol of loss to a symbol of hope. Ruby transforms her mother's rose symbol into a symbol of “achieving the impossible” not only for her family, friends and the people of Remnant but also for herself by inspiring everyone to have hope, Kaiser is finally able to stand up, regain his hope and turn the game in his favor with his “Impact Kaiser Magnum” move, a move that was considered impossible in the circumstances in which he found himself.

Ruby Rose stops being Summer Rose 2.0, remembers who she is and takes the first steps to recognize herself as her own person, Kaiser goes from being the prodigy of Bastard Munchen, remembers who he was and that drives him to take the first steps to define himself not because of his status but as his own person.

Curiously, both had to reconnect with their inner child in order to move forward and take these first steps towards their evolution: Ruby connects with Little (who represents her inner child) who is vital for her development in volume 9, Kaiser remembers his self as a child and this becomes key to his growth in the match against PXG.

And even both of them have a rivalry with someone who are considered high-level strategists who have enormous resentment towards our roses for different reasons:

Although Isagi has more valid reasons for being upset with Kaiser than Cinder being upset with Ruby but that still doesn't take away from the fact that part of the reason Ruby and Kaiser go through their breakdowns and development arcs is because of the actions of Cinder and Isagi.

Cinder hates Ruby for hurting her with her silver eyes (optimism), but I'm sure that later Ruby along with other characters will save and inspire Cinder to change.

Isagi on the other hand clearly hates Kaiser for the way he treats him (malice) but also sees Kaiser as the type of soccer player he aspires to be and is inspired by his plays to improve his own.

Our roses' journey is not over yet, but considering how their arcs are similar despite their differences, I am excited to see how they will end and I am very sure that there will be more similarities and contrast between the two.

Ruby Rose and Michael Kaiser: Two Growing Roses

I don't know about you but Kaiser shares things in common with Ruby and in a way Kaiser is what Ruby would have been if she hadn't received love from her family and friends in her life.

I'm quite aware that many think that Ruby is more like Kunigami and Kaiser is more like Mercury and Cinder but as I watched their arcs I couldn't help but notice how they are more similar than it seems and that's because Ruby and Kaiser are the same person under different circumstances.

To begin with, Ruby and Kaiser's struggle is rooted in their respective relationships with their families. To begin with, they had to deal with enormous pain at a very young age caused by the disappearance of their mothers:

On the one hand Ruby was raised in an unstable family environment where her mother went on a mission and never returned which caused her family to break down: her father Tai was consumed by depression, Yang had to be a surrogate mother for Ruby although she was also a girl who suffers from the abandonment of Raven, and Qrow, despite being the most stable figure for Ruby, he already had a history of having a semblance of bad luck that he cannot control and that he comes from a family of bandits but Summer's disappearance was the straw that broke the camel's back and he ended up sinking into alcoholism but despite everything all of them continued to love Ruby and tried to do everything possible to stay together as a family.

On the other hand, Kaiser grew up in a completely broken family: his father was a film director and his mother was a famous actress, they both fell in love and Kaiser was born as a result of that relationship, but his mother abandons them to continue with her acting career and his father is so submerged by pain to the point that he becomes an alcoholic, loses his prestige as a director and vents all his anger and pain on his son to the point of telling him that himself (Kaiser's father) and Kaiser's mother are worth less but that Kaiser doesn't even have value.

Both situations are quite different but the effect it caused on both is practically the same: Ruby and Kaiser see themselves as a burden and want to compensate their existence by being special.

Ruby witnesses her suffering from the loss of her mother, which is why she ends up seeing herself as a burden and wanting to be a copy of her mother, not only because she admires her and wants to emulate her to feel that somehow Summer still alive, but she also empathizes with her family and wants to ease the pain they have from losing Summer.

Kaiser sees himself as less than human and witnessing violence and insults throughout his childhood which makes him unable Kaiser is unable to empathize with others, interacts with people through violenceand ends up believing that in order to feel that he is valuable and not a burden he has to take away the value of others.

Even the mere fact that they both look like their mothers only makes them both view their own existence as less: Ruby feels like she has to be Summer's copy to make up for her lack but knows she can never replace her. Because of the way Kaiser's father treated him, Kaiser subconsciously internalizes that he can never be a human (in other words he can never make up for his mother's absence or be loved by his father) because to his own father Kaiser is worth less than himself (Kaiser's father) and his mother (and there are even indications that Kaiser's father probably hated him because of the resemblance Kaiser has to his mother and that made him remember her and increased his pain for abandoning him after having Kaiser).

They have rose motifs and the reason is because of their mothers: Summer left her rose emblem as a symbol of love for her daughters, Kaiser's mother abandoned him and his father and the only thing she left behind was a blue rose that Kaiser's father keeps it as a souvenir of her, becoming a reminder of lack of love.

As I said before, Ruby and Kaiser have rose motifs only that Ruby's motifs focus on the petals and Kaiser's motifs focus on the thorns, this shows that despite being opposites they still have similarities between them just like the petals and thorns are different parts of the rose but they are still parts of the same flower.

Also the fact that their rose motifs are different is because Ruby received love which makes her develop kindness while Kaiser only received hate which makes him develop his malice. This shaped the way they both seek to compensate for their existence:

Ruby compensate her existence by being the huntress who helps and protects everyone with her kindness.

Kaiser compensate his existence by being a striker who crushes his enemies on the field with his malice.

The way in which they both want to compensate or give meaning to their existence is through something that they were passionate about since their childhood: Ruby always listened to fairy tales, stories of Summer and the stories of other hunters in general and the only good thing that Kaiser had in his childhood was his soccer ball that bought himself.

Ruby and Kaiser get their chance to continue their quest to compensate for their existence after they got into trouble and they are detained for that: Ruby stopping Roman from robbing a dust store and Glynda helps her but immediately afterwards takes her to an interrogation room for acting without being a licensed hunter and Kaiser being framed for a crime he didn't commit, beating his father for trying to protect his precious soccer ball and the police and being arrested for it.

After Ruby and Kaiser are detained, an adult (Ozpin/Ray Dark) comes to recruit them when they realizes that they have talent for their respective areas (huntress and silver eyed warrior/footballer and striker). Ruby and Kaiser take the opportunity and join them and although at first they have trouble adapting to their teammates, they eventually manage to become outstanding huntress/footballer who manage to inspire them. Only while Ruby inspires them with her skill as a leader and her optimism, Kaiser does so through his skill as a striker and manipulation.

Part of the reason they have managed to be so prominent in their respective fields is because they have proven capable of being resourceful and cunning, even more than people give them credit for: Ruby is always seen as a naive and enthusiastic girl, but she has managed to make her enemies lower their guard and attack them when they least expect it and Kaiser not only manipulates people off the field, but is able to think and create solid plays when playing his matches.

However, Ruby and Kaiser share their obsession with being the best in their respective areas to the point of becoming symbols because that way they don't have to deal with their trauma and even refuse to talk about it with those closest to them. Ruby is so busy saving others that she doesn't have time to think about her own trauma, Kaiser takes too much delight in being the best striker on his team that he pushes aside any thoughts about his own trauma. Neither of them thinks about it because both Ruby and Kaiser see themselves as worthless to the point that not only do they feel they have to prove that they are not a burden, but they both believe that their own traumas are not important because Ruby and Kaiser deep down doesn't believe that themselves are important.

Ruby and Kaiser have a belief in “making the impossible happen”, Ruby really believes that she should keep fighting even if winning is impossible, she believes that she and her friends can stop Salem and change Remnant for the better, Kaiser really believes that if he was able to escape from his abusive home that seemed impossible, he can achieve anything he sets his mind to. However, Ruby and Kaiser take this belief to extremes due to their respective traumas, which prevents them from having true growth: Ruby truly believes that she has the weight of the world on her shoulders and that she has to solve everyone's problems, Kaiser never believed in himself to the point that he needs to feel that others are inferior to him in order to feel special.

All of the above makes both characters want to become symbols (after all there is nothing better to represent the impossible than a symbol), only they don't understand that being symbols isn't about Ruby redeeming the world with her hope or Kaiser destroying the hope of others; it's about Ruby and Kaiser learning to live in a world that wants to crush hope with their hope still intact.

Ruby and Kaiser believe that symbols are loved by everyone and that symbols don't feel pain but always move forward but Ruby and Kaiser forget that they are still human so seeing themselves as symbols that don't feel pain is not a healthy coping mechanism and as their respective stories progress these coping mechanisms stop being viable and they are forced to take the first step to grow which is to accept their humanity (accept their trauma to be able to face it, accept that they are humans who suffer and they fail like anyone else but don't let themselves be defined by said suffering or failures, be more independent, trust others more and ask for their help, etc.) because if they don't do so they will not advance.

Even in their closest relationships there are subtle evidences and consequences of that stagnation, Ruby feels that she owes it to Yang to be the perfect little sister and leader, Kaiser always receives assistance from Ness and depends on his passes to score goals (Ness and Yang are also dependent on Kaiser and Ruby: Yang sees Ruby as the younger sister who needs protection, Ness sees Kaiser as a symbol of the magic he wants to see but doesn't know him for who he really is, Ruby and Kaiser on the other hand don't understand that they are already enough for Yang and Ness, so I I think that both Kaiser and Ness and Ruby and Yang have to be more independent from each other so that their bond is healthier and stronger).

Their abilities as well as their roses motif show evidence of this stagnation too. Ruby rushes to be the perfect hunter by using her semblance to help others quickly, but she can scatter and lose herself. On the other hand, Kaiser is so focused on crushing his opponents with his thorned goals that he doesn't realize that he could become crushed by his own thorns.

But part of those first steps that they need to take to begin to evolve begin with a process of destruction

and rebirth.

Part of that rebirth is that both have to redefine the meaning of their rose motifs: Ruby and Kaiser must convert the meaning of the rose (a mother's promise/a mother's abandonment, being in the end a reminder of the pain left by the departures of both women in the lives of Ruby and Kaiser) and give them a new meaning, converting them from the symbol of their mothers to their own symbols, the roses go from being a symbol of loss to a symbol of hope. Ruby transforms her mother's rose symbol into a symbol of “achieving the impossible” not only for her family, friends and the people of Remnant but also for herself by inspiring everyone to have hope, Kaiser is finally able to stand up, regain his hope and turn the game in his favor with his “Impact Kaiser Magnum” move, a move that was considered impossible in the circumstances in which he found himself.

Ruby Rose stops being Summer Rose 2.0, remembers who she is and takes the first steps to recognize herself as her own person, Kaiser goes from being the prodigy of Bastard Munchen, remembers who he was and that drives him to take the first steps to define himself not because of his status but as his own person.

Curiously, both had to reconnect with their inner child in order to move forward and take these first steps towards their evolution: Ruby connects with Little (who represents her inner child) who is vital for her development in volume 9, Kaiser remembers his self as a child and this becomes key to his growth in the match against PXG.

And even both of them have a rivalry with someone who are considered high-level strategists who have enormous resentment towards our roses for different reasons:

Although Isagi has more valid reasons for being upset with Kaiser than Cinder being upset with Ruby but that still doesn't take away from the fact that part of the reason Ruby and Kaiser go through their breakdowns and development arcs is because of the actions of Cinder and Isagi.

Cinder hates Ruby for hurting her with her silver eyes (optimism), but I'm sure that later Ruby along with other characters will save and inspire Cinder to change.

Isagi on the other hand clearly hates Kaiser for the way he treats him (malice) but also sees Kaiser as the type of soccer player he aspires to be and is inspired by his plays to improve his own.

Our roses' journey is not over yet, but considering how their arcs are similar despite their differences, I am excited to see how they will end and I am very sure that there will be more similarities and contrast between the two.

A while ago @frankielucky​ posted this comic, and I had a very dumb idea. Enjoy!

[Click here to listen to the song]

You’re free to give this the ending your heart desires.

RWBY TAIYANG SHORT

Taiyang Long. He’s a monster slayer, master martial artist, and the well-beloved hero of a little town called Patch.

He’s also eating sunflower seeds while watching TV in his bathrobe.

Halfway through his third bowl in as many hours that morning, a battery of over-excited dog barks commenced an artillery barrage on Tai’s numb ears.

“Darn it, Zwei!” Tai groaned as he peeled himself off the couch, “Go back to sleep, you dumb dog! Don’t even know why I got you in the first place!” the Huntsman added sullenly as Zwei whined and began panting happily in response to its master opening the front door.

“Hey Huntsman! Got time for a drink?”

Taiyang sighed and leaned his head against the front door jamb. He then laughed helplessly as he stepped to the side and replied.

“Always, Chief. Always.”

The pair were a third of the way through with the six-pack in the living room of Taiyang’s cabin when the Chief of Patch Town broached the topic.

Brushing off sunflower seeds from the front of his shirt, the Chief grunted as he changed his posture around his overflowing gut to rest his elbows on his knees. Pushing his glasses up his stub-round nose, the Chief smiled at Taiyang and said.

“Huntsman, have you thought about getting married again?”

Taiyang had just swallowed another handful of seeds and was just about to chase the nuts with a drink. But the Chief’s innocent query reversed the controls in his brains, and what was supposed to go down came back up—all over the low coffee table already strewn with seeds and empty beer cans.

“What the hell was that about?”

The Chief chuckled, apparently unperturbed by Taiyang’s outburst. Instead, the older man simply continued.

“You do know that there are quite a few eligible bachelorettes in town who would be happy to spend time with someone of your reputation, Huntsman. Who knew being a good father is so attractive to young girls today?”

Clearing his throat, Taiyang took a quick sip of beer before setting the half-full can aside on whatever space on the coffee table.

“Come on, Chief. I really can’t. I watched most of the girls in Patch grow up and babysat a few of them with my two girls. I’m like an uncle to them. I can’t … I don’t see any of them that way.”

“I see, I see. Then what about the older women?”

“They just remind me of my first wife.” Taiyang moaned as he threw his head back over the couch’s backrest. “I asked her once, I asked her thrice … she SWORE she was on the pill. Shouldn’t have gotten condoms from that chemist her brother recommended.”

The Chief nodded in sympathy. He had met his fair share of shotgun pregnancies and weddings where a pissed-off father had his shotgun trained on a Son-In-Law he never wanted. Taiyang’s circumstances had a reasonably happy ending compared to others.

“Well!” the Chief declared as he slapped his hand against his thigh, “To be honest, the wife suggested that I ask you about marriage prospects. Otherwise, she wouldn’t shut up about it. However, the missus raised something we gotta address, even if her suggestion isn’t exactly a lightbulb-lighting moment.”

One of Taiyang’s handmade doilies was crumpled beneath the Chief’s weight as he shifted around to look at the Huntsman in his baby blue eyes. 

“Huntsman. You’ve gotta get a life!”

“Say what?”

The Chief barrelled on before Taiyang could muster up a counter-argument.

“I know you’re feeling a little … empty ... after your girl, Ruby, left for Beacon Academy. But you can’t keep living like this!” “C’mon, Chief,” Taiyang replied with a dismissive wave of his hand, “I’m having the time of my life! Now that the girls are gone, I can finally have some ‘me’ time. Just kick back and do some man-things, like catching up on pro-wrestling matches …”

“You’re watching the great Mistral Bake-Off.” 

“The way contestant number 3 kneads the pastry for Rapier-Wasp Stinger Pie gets my testosterone going, ok?! Besides, I need a few days to settle into my new routine without kids hanging off my dressing gown. It's no big deal.”

“Huntsman, it’s been a month since Ruby left for Beacon.”

That was when Taiyang snapped and pounced onto the Chief, shaking him by the lapels of his shirt and screaming.

“WHAT IF MY BABY GIRL GETS A TATTOO?!”

The Chief grunted as fingers toughened over decades on the hide of monsters dug into his skin and damn near choked him out. Thankfully, a series of quick taps on Taiyang’s arm, signifying submission, relieved the pressure on the Chief’s throat. Although his posture changed much, Taiyang calmed down soon after, from a state of lethargic apathy to frantic worry.

The Chief grimaced as Taiyang began pacing the living room floor, working himself up to a frenzy, thinking about how his daughters were ruining themselves without his supervision. The Chief had seen it before when his eldest son left home for college, and the boy’s mother had spent two months setting the table and cooking for three people instead of two. Life shifts hard when one’s children leave the nest, and by all the Gods of Remnant, the Chief knew just how to sort it out.

“Look, Huntsman,” The Chief finally cut in as Taiyang was about to start a rant about the negative influence of primetime TV on kids, “It’s clear that you’re having problems adjusting to your kids being away from home. But you’re a filthy mess; no one in town has seen you leave your cabin, and you’re letting yourself go. You need something to occupy yourself, and I might have just the thing.”

Extracting a slightly damp flyer from his back pocket, the Chief quickly clarified as he shoved the warm piece of paper into Taiyang’s warmer hands.

“I heard that Signal Academy is looking for an experienced Monster Slayer to teach there, and since you had all that experience training your girls for all those years, I thought you might be a good fit!”

Glancing over the recruitment flyer while taking a pensive drink, Taiyang sat back and stared from the opposite wall of the cabin's living room. There, next to the TV in place of prominence, was placed a photograph of Taiyang himself. With two girls, a half-bruised blonde crushing her father with a baseball bat and a doe-eyed redhead sobbing at her older sister's antics. The other photo didn't bear thinking too deeply about.

"I dunno, Chief. Do you know how they say teaching someone is like giving up a part of your soul? I did that for my baby girls, and I'm unsure if I have anything left for anyone else. I'm sorry."

The Chief waved away Taiyang's words with the hand filled with a beer can.

"Ain't no need to apologize, Huntsman; I've been a father too and get what you mean. But, when you give yourself to someone, raise them right and send them out into the world. They give you something right back and make you twice the person you ever thought you were."

The Chief then drained his beer before concluding.

"If you had done right by your girls, which I know damn well you have, then by golly, you'd have twice the wisdom of any one Huntsman to pass on to others. That, I know as assuredly as I know that this is bad beer!"

Taiyang laughed in agreement but drank anyway. That was when a long, low bell began ringing in the distance, and the Chief immediately shot to his feet.

"Goddamn! Beowulf attack!" The Chief bellowed as he bustled out of the living room. "I gotta go, Huntsman; you finish the rest of that beer, think about that offer, and shower!" The Chief added before disappearing out of the cabin, leaving Taiyang with memories and a decision to make.

The Beowulf pack was small but old and persistent as corns. It had taken two full quivers of explosive arrows from half a dozen archers to kill just one of those things, and the town's militia was struggling with the rest. However, the Chief was optimistic; The militia had managed to intercept the pack before they reached the town's outer walls and had driven two younger beasts away in the opening engagement. Now, only three were left in the fight.

"Break!" someone shouted over Beowulf's howls and the singing of bows. “One of the beasts is breaking for the town!"

The Chief cursed as he turned and trained his telescope on the errant Beowulf. A cross between a wolf and a gorilla, the afternoon sun glinted with the sinister fury of the brute's white, bone armor, undulating beneath tar-pitch fur as it loped towards Patch's defensive walls.

Stowing his telescope, the Chief turned and nodded at his assistants and raised his hand. The roar of a dozen speedbikes responded to the signal and barrelled off in an arrow formation to head the Beowulf off before it reached the walls.

But despite the speed of the bikes and the skill of its riders, the Beowulf had too much of a head start and would have clambered over the walls before the formation could stop it. 

In fact, by the time the Chief's riders had come close enough to make out the individual banners lining the top of Patch's town walls. Banners of the various high families that founded the town. The Beowulf was halfway up the wall and would have vaulted over the lip of the barricade if Taiyang Long had not leaped off the wall, dive-bombed ten-plus feet, and punched the beast off the wall and into the dirt at the wall's foot.

A second punch. A blow that carried farther than a gunshot. Had disintegrated the stray Beowulf's head by the time the Chief's speedbike stopped beside Taiyang.

"Huntsman! I didn't think you'd show up!"

Taiyang shrugged happily. Garbed in the gear of his hunting days, the Huntsman looked good. It was as if he had shed the lethargic malaise of his recent month like a dragon's skin and was refreshed with the prospect of action. Just as the Chief had guessed.

"Ah, well. You know how it is. I WAS going to watch the third round of the Mistral Bake Off. But before I knew it, I had my gear on and was punching a Beowulf's block off. It was like I was possessed by something."

"Well, that's just plum awful, Huntsman. But since you're here, you need a ride?"

"Nah," Taiyang said as he stretched his calves. "I'll jog. Besides, as you said, I'm twice the Huntsman I was. So I'm probably twice as fast as you! See ya!"

And with that, Taiyang sprinted off toward his next mission.

THEY CATS NOW

-x-

ELAS GATOS AGORA